


Monsters And Men

by jusains



Category: Black Friday Musical
Genre: Fantasy, I think?, M/M, Mutual Pining, ace howard., ace howard?, also there might be light nightmare time spoilers in this, anxious Howard, but also I've never written anything like this so bear with me, but mostly in a way that you'll get this story more if you watched nightmare time, but you can totally read this without having watched nt in my humble opinion, equally as anxious John tbh, instead of actual spoilers, it's rated teen and up bc i will attempt to make it creepy, probably won't be creepy at all, they‘re gay and scared like the rest of us
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:28:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25312333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jusains/pseuds/jusains
Summary: AU where John and Howard get trapped in the B&W.As they attempt to survive and escape, they discover a twisted world full of creatures beyond imagination (also they fall in ~love~)The idea was brought to you by AnonTM who is a genius and also knows that I don‘t have any self control
Relationships: Macman, general John MacNamara/Howard Goodman
Comments: 32
Kudos: 38





	1. Into The Black

Johns grip on his hand is strong, pulling Howard along as they run for the portal.

It’s pitch black.

Quiet, except for the splashing sound caused by their feet as the water on the ground rises further, the longer they run.

It’s pitch black and Howard can’t see anything. He’s not sure if John knows where he’s going but he wants to trust him, too scared of what might be if John had lost orientation as well.

They slow down when the water reaches all the way up to their knees.

“John”, Howard whispers, not sure why he’s whispering but scared that whatever is out there with them might hear him.

John stops.

Their stagged breathing stumbles through the silence as both of them gasp for air, trying to catch their breath as is runs away, runs off.

Howard is scared.

There wasn’t water when he entered the Black and White.

They must be wrong here, they must have ran into the wrong direction.

“John?”, he whispers again.

“I’m sorry”, John mumbles.

He sounds scared too.

Johns grip on Howard’s hand gets stronger.

Howard stares at John as he looks around, narrowing his eyes as he tries to make out their surroundings. But there isn’t anything surrounding them, just eternal darkness.

Wigglys laughter booms towards them through the darkness and Howard flinches, stepping closer to John out of reflex.

“It seems you have miscalculated the direction of your portal.”

Howard feels something stroke his ankle and he freezes, squeezing Johns hand for some reason.

“Just kill us already”, he thinks.

Wiggly laughs again and Howard notices that he must have said it out loud. Either that or Wiggly can read his thoughts. He‘s not sure what‘s more terrifying.

“Kill you? I would rather play a game.”

“Play?”, Howard whispers.

“How about a game of hide and seek? I will give you a little advance Mr. Prezzy-Wes. I will count to three. And if I win, you will let me rip out your belly-well. It’s time for some redecoration down here, don’t you agree?”

“No!”

“One.”

Howard wants to run but whatever was stroking his ankle earlier is holding on to it now. He’s stuck.

“Don’t let go”, John says now, looking up at Howard with fear in his eyes.

“Two.”

“I’m scared”, Howard chokes out.

“Mr. President, listen-“

“Three!”

Howard looses balance when his feet are sweeped off the ground. He hears himself scream, as he gets pulled under water. He feels Johns hand slip from his grip and he looks at him, just to see him get pulled into a completely different direction.

He’s fighting against something Howard can’t see and he’s not sure if John can even see it.

John doesn’t wear a suit.

Howard can breath but John can’t.

John is going to drown.

Howard tries to follow him, pushing himself through the water after him but whatever is holding on to his ankle keeps pulling him further and further away.

And then he looses John, he just disappears in the darkness.

Howard looks down but he doesn’t see anything and when he reaches for his ankle to get rid of whatever is pulling him down, there’s nothing.

He closes his eyes, pleading, praying to whatever is out there for help.

This is not how he wants it to end.

This can’t be the end.

There’s just fear now.

Darkness and fear and it’s eating Howard alive.

He starts to cry, at some point.

Then it’s suddenly over.

It’s silent, he stopped screaming or his voice is gone and the grip on his ankle dissolved.

Howard is just floating.

He opens his eyes when he realises he closed them and he sees a light.

It’s tiny but bright as the sun.

There’s someone floating in the water next to him.

John.

_John._

He’s unconscious.

Of course he is.

Howard finds himself swim towards him, getting a grip of his arm and pulling him close to his chest, because he can’t just leave him there, right?

Then he looks back at the light, squinting his eyes in order to place it but it’s just a bright orb, really.

He decides to get closer, pulling John along.

It’s the only thing giving him some kind of orientation, so he’d rather follow it than swim towards the darkness.

He’s not even sure where up and where down is, so the chances of getting back to the surface are slim to none.

He doesn’t want John to die.

The closer he gets to the orb, the bigger it gets.

He reaches for it, when he’s close enough to touch it.

It’s just floating in the water, slightly moving away from Howard after his fingertips brushed it.

It’s not hot.

Somehow Howard expected it to be hot.

It’s twice as big as Howard’s head and suddenly it moves closer to him and passes him eventually. He frowns, following it with his gaze before he turns back around.

He opens his mouth to scream but it gets stuck somewhere along the way as he stares at whatever is in front of him.

It’s just big, empty eyes and teeth.

Long, sharp teeth, many, many teeth, belonging to a jaw that is slowly opening up.

It’s like a humpback angler fish but enormous.

Howard wants to swim away but he’s frozen in shock and he’s just clinging to John, whispering apologies as he realises that there’s no way out. Even if he did swim away, he wouldn’t be fast enough. Not faster than that thing.

It opens it’s jaws further and Howard almost pisses himself. He surely starts to cry again, when it moves closer.

There’s seemingly nothing behind those teeth.

Just pitched darkness.

And death, most likely.

Howard presses his eyes shut.

Then everything happens really fast. He feels himself get sucked into it, like into a black hole or into the ocean under the force of a riptide.

All he remembers is clinging to John, not wanting to let go of him again.

Then he’s falling.


	2. The Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Howard finds himself mid-air somewhere and John is very much unconscious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW:  
> \- blood  
> \- open wounds  
> \- vomiting  
> \- reanimation (?) 
> 
> this chapter also depicts incredibly inaccurate medical facts (probably) (like how would I know though) (I’m not a doctor)

Howard falls for a while. 

He looses John mid-air, he’s not particularly proud of that part. 

When he opens his eyes, he sees a night sky and for a moment he’s relieved, because he’s not dead, he escaped that thing somehow. 

Then his back hits something hard, knocking the air out of his lungs. 

He gasps, pulling his arms up to shield his head as he tumbles through branches closer to the ground. 

The plastic of his visor shatters and Howard closes his eyes again as he feels the splinters hit his cheek, cutting into his skin. He tries to get it fully off, but he’s still mid-air and the branches are beating him up like angry highschool bullies. 

The ground is soft, when he finally hits it. Earth and moss, Howard notices. 

Mostly at least. 

He also lands on something sharp and it cuts into the soft flesh of his belly, making him groan in pain. 

He pushes himself up, looking down on himself to see an abnormally sharp piece of rock, smeared with blood. His blood, it appears. 

He gasps quietly, his hand finding the wound on his belly and carefully touching it, scared that it’s genuinely deep. 

It sure hurts like shit. 

He forces himself to look around now. 

They’re in a forest. 

And something seems off. 

It’s not even the fact that the tree trunks are deep red and all the leafs are dark blue, almost black, making the forest look like it came right out of a badly coloured children’s book. 

It’s the silence. 

Howard is not used to silence in forests. 

There’s always birds chirping or twigs breaking from the animals moving around. 

But it’s dead silent. 

His eyes fall on John, who is laying on the ground a few feet away from Howard. 

“John”, he whispers and it’s almost too loud in contrast to the silence surrounding them. 

He fumbles the broken visor off, throwing it away as he crawls towards John. 

He’s still unconscious and his body looks weirdly twisted. 

Howard reaches for his shoulder, trying to get one coherent thought, even though his head is a mess. 

He settles on pushing John on his back, before he reaches for his head and tilts it upwards so he can breath. If he’s still alive that means. 

Howard is shaking, more from the fear than the cold but he can’t deny that it really is terribly cold in that forest. 

He reaches for Johns wrist, looking for a heartbeat and finding one. He’s relieved but also scared that it might just be his own he’s feeling. 

His heart is beating so fast and loud, he can’t concentrate. 

He leans down to John now, checking for a breath and he’s either really stupid and bad at this or John isn’t breathing. 

Then he just starts to panic because if that was Johns heart beating then CPR is not the right thing to do. 

Can he just give him mouth to mouth? What if he makes it worse? What if John is alive and Howard goes and kills him on accident? 

He’s just crying now, panicking and staring at John. 

He presses his hand on his mouth, sobbing when it dawns on him that this might be how he looses John. 

He will be out here all alone, wherever he is. 

He desperately tries to remember everything he ever heard about first-aid but he completely blacks out, not wanting to do anything wrong and make it worse. 

Then he realises that John might already be dead so what can he make worse? Nothing right? 

He has to do _something_. 

He opens Johns protection vest now, pulling it off him so he can see if his chest is moving. And he’s pretty sure it’s not. Howard is not crazy and John is not breathing. 

He puts his ear down on Johns chest, closing his eyes as he listens for a heartbeat. 

If only his own heart stopped intervening. This is so much harder than he ever imagined. 

He takes a breath and concentrates. And he believes to hear a heartbeat. 

It’s really slow but it’s there. 

He pushes himself up, leaning over Johns face and checking his breath again, just to be sure. 

Then he carefully makes sure that Johns head is still tilted up and he puts his hand on Johns nose, closing it with his index finger and his thumb before he leans down and places his lips on Johns. 

He tries to push air into Johns lungs more than once and the optimistic part in him dies off faster, the longer John doesn’t react. 

Just as Howard is about to give up, John coughs. 

Howard quickly pulls back and reaches for Johns shoulder to pull him up and on his side when he starts to cough up water, puking it all out.

Howard laughs quietly, feeling weirdly relieved. 

John is alive. 

“Fuck”, he whispers, when John finally seems to calm down, pushing himself up a little, in a seating position. 

“What happened? Where are we?”, he mutters, his voice raspy. He looks a little disoriented but at least he‘s alive. 

“I’m not sure.” 

Howard pushes himself closer to John now, just to pull him in his arms. 

“I thought I had lost you”, he says, maybe trying to explain the sudden affection. 

John just let’s himself fall against Howard. 

He‘s shaking. 

He‘s cold. 

Of course he is, he’s soaked to the bones and there‘s a chilly wind rifling through those trees. 

Howard pulls him even closer, in a desperate attempt to warm him. But he barely has enough body heat for himself, clenching his teeth now. 

“How did we get here?”, John asks. 

“There was some kind of.. a thing. Like a really big angler fish. It ate us but we didn’t die. .. I think.” 

“What?” 

He sounds so confused. 

“We’re either dead or it was a portal”, Howard says, only now realising that possibility. 

John nods, not looking surprised at all.

He pushes himself away from Howard and looks around, seemingly scanning their surroundings. 

“We should try and find shelter. We won’t survive the night if we don’t find a place to hide.” 

“I’m sorry what?” 

“The silence. It sounds like anticipation.” 

“It’s just silence”, Howard says, trying to talk himself into believing it.

He feels it too. 

It’s like the woods are waiting for something and he has a feeling that that something is not going to be pleasant for the two of them. 

“Come on.” 

John gets up like he didn’t drown a few minutes ago and pulls Howard up as well. 

“Your face is bleeding”, he says, as a matter of fact. 

Howard instinctively reaches up to his face, feeling a warm wetness. His fingers are stained red when he pulls them back. 

“Oh, yeah, I.. the visor shattered”, he explains, trying to ignore how much his flesh is pulsating where the material cut. 

Maybe the shock from his other wound let him ignore the pain earlier but now it really starts to hurt. 

“I will take a look at that later, we shouldn’t let that get infected”, John says. 

Howard nods lightly, because that’s probably for the best. He should also tell John about his belly wound, but not now. 

He doesn‘t want to worry him. 

“Where do we go?“ 

John doesn’t answer, he just looks around until he starts to walk into a seemingly random direction. 

Howard decides to trust John and follows him quickly. 


	3. Sirens (Or Whatever)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John leaves Howard alone for a bit and Howard meets someone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW:  
> \- gun  
> \- death (by gun)  
> \- blood  
> \- nudity

They walk for a while. 

Howard hates to admit it but the pain got a lot worse and now he’s just stumbling after John, trying to hide his staggered breathing.   


He's pressing his hand on his wound, too scared to look down at it because he doesn't want to see how bad it got. If he just doesn't look, maybe he'll be fine. Maybe everything is fine, maybe it's just a little scratch, one of those that hurt like hell but aren't actually that bad. Maybe he's just overreacting. That would be nice.   


He stumbles over a root that's sticking out of the ground and whimpers quietly when pain shoots through his body. He quickly looks up, checking to see if John heard but he didn't, he just keeps walking, way too far away to notice how bad of a time Howard is having. 

Howard looks back at the root, angry now. 

It's just sitting there in the earth, formed like a smile and for a moment Howard is sure that it's laughing at him.   


"John?", he asks, getting scared about that one piece of wood. 

John stops and turns around. 

"What are you doing back there? We need to keep walking, it is not safe here." 

“Nowhere is safe here”, Howard mutters, having lost patience and strength. 

He takes a shaky breath and blinks as the tears start to burn in his eyes. He just wants to rest for a bit, is that too much to ask? 

He knows that John doesn't know what's wrong but they've been walking for what feels like _hours_ , how is John just fine with that?   


“When can we stop walking?”, he asks, pleads, trying to keep his voice steady. 

John doesn't answer, he's just frowning, scanning Howard up and down. 

Howard tries to stand upright as good as he can but John clearly notices that he’s not fine. Howard is all sweaty from the pain and his legs feel like they'll just give in at any moment now. 

"Are you alright?", John asks. 

Howard just shakes his head because it's very much about time that he tells John. He's been meaning to anyway, he swears. He just wanted to wait until they're somewhere safe. 

Howard pulls his hand off his wound and holds it up to show John. 

His palm is stained red.

"Oh", John mutters. He quickly comes over to Howard and reaches for his waist, steadying him or trying to get a better look at the wound, maybe, Howard isn't sure. 

Howard clenches his teeth when another shock of pain shoots through his abdomen. He holds onto John now, just grabbing his shoulders and leaning onto him, so he doesn't loose balance. 

John looks up, a mix of betrayal and shock in his eyes.  “Why didn’t you tell me?” 

“I didn’t want to worry you”, Howard admits in all honesty. 

“What happened?” 

“When I landed there was.. a stone? Or something.” 

“You look very pale, you must have lost a lot of blood."

"Yeah, I admit it was a bit."

"Come on”, John says, then he reaches for Howard, wrapping his arm around his waist. 

"Where are we going?", Howard asks. 

"Just over there. You need to rest and we need to clean that to prevent an infection."

Howard just nods because John is probably right and resting sounds like a nice idea anyway. 

John leads him to a rather small river.  The water is all clear and the ground underneath glistens in the dark. It‘s beautiful. 

“Okay, here should be fine”, John says. 

He helps Howard sit down on the ground in front of a big piece of rock that he can lean against.

“Stay here, yes?” 

“Where are you going?”, Howard asks, panicking now.

“Looking for something to help you?” 

“No, don’t.. please don’t leave me.” 

John frowns, looking surprised at Howards sudden panic. 

“I won’t be gone for long”, he then says. 

Howard hesitates at first but then settles on nodding and giving in but just because he doesn’t want to seem pathetic and helpless. 

He’s the president of the United States after all. 

“Okay?”, John asks. 

Howard nods again, forcing a smile. 

“I’ll be fine”, he says. 

“Okay.” John gets up and leaves, disappearing somewhere behind Howard. 

It’s quiet again, as soon as he’s gone. 

And Howard is scared again. 

He was scared before but there still was some kind of comfort in not being utterly alone. 

He is alone now. 

At least he hopes he is. 

Now that he thinks about it, he realises that he’s not scared of being alone, instead he’s scared that he’s not. He’s scared that there’s someone else, lurking in the trees around him, someone who isn’t John.

There’s a crack behind him and he flinches, pressing his back up against the rock in an attempt to hide. 

Then there’s a thumping sound. 

Like someone landing on the soft mossy ground, not bothering to be quiet about it. 

“John?”, Howard whispers. 

Nothing. 

He curses quietly. 

“Why does it have to be so fucking dark?”, he whispers, annoyed because he can barely see further than ten feet. 

At the same moment, the light just turns on, like someone flipped a switch. And just like that it’s day. Or at least it pretends to be day. 

It’s still equally as quiet, a phenomenon that somehow overwhelms Howard all over again. A quiet forest is even weirder when it’s quiet during the day. 

There should be birds. 

Howard is sure that there should be birds chirping. 

There’s another crack, sounding closer than the previous one. 

Howard turns around, frantically scanning the trees and the spaces in between, up and down and back up into the treetops, his heart racing in his chest. 

“Who are you?”, a female voice asks and Howard nearly screams, trying to locate the voice until he notices a woman in the water in front of him. 

He just stares at her in shock, scared to say something or to move. 

She’s leaning on the muddy ground next to the riverbed, half of her body disappearing underwater. 

There’s no pupils in her eyes, no irises. It’s just dark nothingness and Howard feels like if he looks into those eyes too long, they will hurt him, so he tries to look away. 

She’s naked, Howard thinks, and he’s very thankful for both, the amount of heavy dark blue-ish curls, hiding most of her body and the fact that she's underwater from her waist down. 

Howard hesitates when he realises how none of this makes any sense. 

She can't be underwater from her waist down because the river wasn’t that deep before, was it?  Howard remembers seeing the ground underneath because the water was so clear and it wasn’t deep. 

He is sure that it wasn’t deep. 

There’s no way she could be floating in there like that. 

But he doesn’t see the ground underneath anymore, he doesn’t see anything beyond the surface. 

“Who are you?”, she asks again. 

“Uh.. Howard Goodman?”, he says, having decided to just go along with it because this isn't a normal place anyway, is it? 

Weird things happen here, you get eaten by a humongous angler fish and suddenly you fall through tree branches and get impaled on a tiny rock that just was there coincidentally. The sky can change from night to day within seconds and apparently riverbeds can change too, from shallow to deep. 

The woman just watches him, showing no reaction to his introduction. 

“I’m the president?”, he quietly goes on, though he’s pretty sure it doesn’t matter anymore, not here and not to her. 

“The president”, she repeats, letting the words roll over her tongue like she’s making fun of him. “President of what, if I may ask?” 

“The.. United States.” 

“That sounds horribly boring.” 

“It’s alright.” 

“Huh.” 

She pushes herself closer to him now, staring him down. 

“Why don't you come here?” 

“What?” 

“Come closer.” 

“I’m sorry, I can barely move. It hurts when I try."

She hesitates, sinking back into the water, a little confused.

“Are you.. not attracted to me?”

“Oh”, Howard fumbles out, feeling really bad for hurting her feelings suddenly. “Like romantically? I’m sorry. Your eyes freak me out a little but honestly you’re beautiful. I’m just, uh.. not really into women?“

She nods lightly and sighs, seeming annoyed. “Do you know much energy it took me to take this form?”, she mutters.

“Sorry, I-..”, 

“Would I be more attractive to you if I changed into a form that resembles your own?“, she goes on. 

Howard doesn’t know what to say, he just stares at her, trying to figure out what she wants from him. 

“Tell me what you want”, she says.

“I just.. wanna go home”, Howard admits.

“But right now. Right.. here? Are you sure this body doesn’t impress you?”

“Are you trying to seduce me?”

She rolls her eyes. “Yes?”

“That’s.. You’re making me very uncomfortable.”

“Just come here.”

“No.”

She frowns. "This really isn't going to work, is it?" 

"I just really don't understand what you're trying to do here."

"This usually works." She doesn't seem to be talking to Howard anymore. 

"What works?"

"Seduction."

"I don't know you! And frankly, I'm neither into women nor do I enjoy-.. uhm.." He hesitates, realising that none of this is actually her business.

She sighs and nods. 

"Frankly me neither."

"What?", Howard asks. 

“I’ll ask you to come here one last time.” 

Howard shakes his head. 

He wants to get up and leave and go find John.

He does get as far as pushing himself up a little, clenching his teeth and pressing his eyes shut in an attempt to make the pain more bearable.

There’s a high pitched scream and Howard gets so frightened that his arms give in and he falls back on the ground, groaning in pain before he quickly directs his attention back at the woman in the water.

He's not even sure how to describe what he's seeing.

Her features are somehow contorting, twisting around each other like a rubik's cube. It hurts Howards eyes and makes his head spin to look at it for too long.

It looks immensely painful. Or at least it feels painful just to look at it. 

“Shit are you okay?”, Howard asks, slowly catching himself a little from the shock and scrambling to move towards her now. He stumbles and falls on the ground in front of her, trying to reach for her or make her feel better in some way. He doesn't even know what he's trying to do exactly, he just wants to help her. 

She sinks back into the water, disappearing under the surface before Howard can get a hold of her and pull her back.

“Shit”, he whispers, pretty sure that he just saw a woman die and did absolutely nothing.

He’s still leaning on his hands, staring into the dark water and trying to make out something beneath the surface when something shoots out and reaches for his wrist.

Howard screams and pulls his hand away, falling back and watching in shock as a body breaks through the surface and pushes itself up.

It’s not the woman. Or it doesn’t look like the woman. It doesn’t resemble a human being in the slightest.

It looks long like an eel and smooth like a shark but its skin has a mossy green. The limbs it used to push itself up with are long. Everything is too long and too hollow, somehow. At the end of those limps are what resembles four fingers and they’re just sinking into the muddy ground below, digging deep into it like roots of a tree. 

The worst part is what Howard assumes is the mouth. The head or the neck just ends in a stump and at the end of it is a hole, opening up. 

There are rows and rows of teeth. 

There doesn’t seem to be an end, there are just teeth, decorating the whole throat. 

They’re not even all the same kind of teeth. Some look like human teeth, some resemble animal canines, some are just straight and pointy like freshly sharpened pencils. 

Howard can barely catch his breath and calm down from the shock before the creature just throws its limb up, splashing mud everywhere. It darts at Howard’s ankle, too fast for him to react.

Slimy long fingers slip around his leg now, the grip getting stronger, strong enough for it to hurt. 

Howard wants to pull away and free himself but soon realises that’s he’s way too weak for that. 

All he can do is watch in shock as that thing opens its mouth and pulls Howard towards it, acting painfully slow. 

Howard completely ceases to function for a moment, either out of shock or out of pain, maybe both. 

Then there’s a gunshot.

Someone screams, maybe it’s Howard, maybe the being, maybe it’s both of them.

The creature sacks down like an inflatable beach ball that quickly looses air and glittery golden blood splutters out of its temple, onto the muddy ground and into the water.

Howard looks up to see who shot, thinking maybe it was John who came to save him.

It’s not John.

It’s the man from earlier.

Wiley? Uncle Wiley?  
From the Wiggly commercial.   
That’s the one.

He’s holding a gun.

He shot the creature.

He laughs and his laugh sounds like the kind of laugh from a childrens toy commercial which is fitting but also terrifying.

“Howie!”, Wiley says, like they’re old friends.

“What?”, Howard whispers.

“I leave you alone for a few hours and you’re already about to be eaten alive?”

“I’m-.. what?”

“You’re welcome.”

“You saved me?”

“Let’s say I delayed your death. There are a lot more horrific ways to die here than to be eaten alive, you see. We want this to be fun.”

“You.. what?”

“Don’t be scared. Dying is always advertised a lot worse than it is. It’s not too bad, if you get used to it. I’ve done it thrice by now.”

He fumbles an apple out of his pocket, polishing it on his jacket.

“You’re dead?”, is all Howard can think of to ask.

“Aren’t we all?”

“ _I’m_ dead?” 

Wiley comes closer, crouching down in front of Howard like he’s an adult, watching a kid that fell on the playground. He reaches for Howard’s jaw and tilts his chin up, watching him while Howard just waits, too scared to do anything against the uncomfortable nearness. 

“Have you ever been truly alive?”, Wiley then asks. 

“What?”, Howard whispers, his throat feeling weirdly dry. 

Wiley just laughs and pushes Howard back into the dirt, making him whimper quietly when the pain shoots into his stomach again. 

“I’ll see you around, Howie”, he says, “It was nice talking to you.” 

Then he gets up and takes a bite of his apple as he leaves, disappearing back into the woods. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sharks are smooth and i love that for them


	4. Pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John comes back and tenderly patches Howard up while fondly calling him reckless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW:  
> \- panic attack  
> \- blood  
> \- lots of blood  
> \- partial nudity  
> \- wounds

Howard sits there for a while and stares at the spot where Wiley vanished.

He takes a breath, trying to calm his nerves and it almost works until he remembers the dead body in front of himself and looks at it on accident.

He slowly pulls his leg out of the creatures limp grip around his ankle and watches it slip off and fall onto the ground, folding in on itself.

This is fine. This is fine, this is fine, this is fine.

Howard pushes himself further away from the riverbed, pressing his back against the piece of rock. He closes his eyes and tries to breath but suddenly it feels like he’s suffocating.

He just starts to cry, needing some kind of let out and still trying to prevent himself from slipping into some sort of panic attack.

He can hear John shout for him from a little distance.

He nods and opens his mouth but doesn’t manage to shout back or at least make some kind of noise.

He just sits there and stares at the body, feeling his throat tighten like he’s being choked.

“Where are you?”, he can hear John again. It’s louder now, like he’s closer.

After what feels like forever, he finally appears next to Howard.

He doesn’t even look at Howard at first, he’s just staring at the corpse in shock.

“What is that? What happened? Are you alright?”, he then asks, finally turning to Howard.

Howard just shrugs and shakes his head.

“Hey.” John kneels down next to him now, reaching for his shoulders, maybe trying to make him snap out of it.

Howard shrugs his touch off, getting even more overwhelmed by it. Thankfully John seems to get the hint and quickly pulls away.

“Breath”, he says, uncharacteristically softly.

Howard nods lightly, trying desperately to calm down.

John turns back to the corpse for a moment, then back to Howard, who is staring at it as well now, incapable of stopping.

“Mr. President”, John says, “Don’t look at that, look at me.”

The absurdity of being called Mr President in that moment and the recoil that it makes Howard feel is almost enough to make him snap out of it all.

He looks at John who holds his gaze, carefully. He nods lightly.

“You’re alright. We’re alright. Yes?”

Howard nods. It feels good to hear that, even if he knows how much of a lie it is. Nothing is alright and both of them will probably die soon, he just knows it.

They sit there for a while.

John is just looking at Howard and breathing along with him, all slow and calming.

“Sorry”, Howard fumbles out, when he finally finds his voice again.

“No, it’s very understandable that you would need a moment after an experience like this.”

Howard nods lightly, letting his eyes wander down on John, wanting to make sure he’s not injured as well.

There’s a smudge of pink goo on his vest and all over his pants.

“What happened?”, he asks.

“Something.. invisible attacked me. I killed it, but..”

“Oh.”

“What happened here?”

“I’m not sure. There was that woman and then she died or she didn’t and then that thing came out of the water and then.. Wiley. He came and shot it and then he said some really ominous stuff and left.”

“Wilbur”, John mumbles.

“What?”, Howard asks.

“Wiley. That’s Wilbur Cross. My ..mentor.”

“Really? But.. you said- He said he died. He said he’s dead.”

John hesitates.

“What did he say exactly?”

“Uh, he said.. he died thrice and dying isn’t that bad? And.. we’re all dead? I don’t know, it was a lot and I was..”

John nods lightly.

“Okay.”

“Is he dead?”, Howard asks, “I mean how is that even possible?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Okay?”

“Come on Mr President. We need to get that wound clean.”

“Don’t call me that”, Howard whispers.

“What? You still are the president.”

“I suppose? But we’re trapped here together and formalities seem weirdly out of place so.. fuck that?”

“What do you want me to call you?”

“Howard. Just.. my name.”

“Okay.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Howard.”

“Still sounds very formal when you say it.”

“I apologise.”

“It’s fine.”

“So.. Howard. Let us go further up the stream where the water isn’t dark and full of glitter?”

Howard nods and almost starts to cry when he tries to push himself up.

John patiently watches him try to get up for about two minutes before he lightly shakes his head.

“Permission to carry you?”, he asks.

“What?”, Howard fumbles out.

“You can’t get up but we need to get away from here.”

“I can do it.”

“You can’t and that’s okay.”

“I feel so pathetic”, Howard whispers, mostly to himself.

“You’re bleeding out”, John just says.

He leans down to Howard, wrapping his arm around his back.

“Permission to carry you?”, he asks again.

Howard nods lightly.

“Yes”, he whispers.

John carefully pushes his other arm under the back of Howards knees and pulls him against his chest. Howard fights with himself about whether or not to do it before he slowly wraps his arms around Johns neck.

John gets up, pulling Howard with him and its weird because Howard can’t remember ever having been carried like that.

John walks up the stream for about five minutes and Howard is really impressed about how much strength he has.

He is just hanging in Johns arms like a dead fish and the longer John keeps walking the lower Howards head drops against Johns neck. He fights it at first because jesus that’s inappropriate but eventually he just gives up trying to hold it steady because heads are really heavy and Howard is tired and at this point he doesn’t even care about keeping his dignity anymore.

Johns hair is wet and tickles Howards face, but he doesn’t really care.

Then John stops walking and carefully sets Howard down.

They’ve reached a lake.

There’s cliffs and a roaring waterfall.

The water looks normal again, transparent and calm. There’s no trace of blood or underwater creatures, which is relieving.

Howard slowly reaches for his protection suit, as if he can trick the pain into believing he‘s not moving that way. It doesn‘t work, it hurts anyway.

He unzips the suit and completely fumbles it off now, looking down on himself to see that there’s a huge red stain on his previously white dress shirt. He nearly passes out at the sight.

That‘s all his.

It‘s so much blood and it all came from him.

“Woah, hey. I can help you”, John says, coming back from wherever he went and sinking down in front of Howard.

John carefully reaches for Howards tie, loosening it.

“Can I take that off you?”

Howard nods.

John pulls the tie off his head, meanwhile Howard starts the painstakingly slow process of unbuttoning his shirt, cursing himself for just having left his suit on under the protection suit. At least he took the jacket off.

Unbuttoning that shirt is harder than he thought it would be and Howard is almost proud that he only starts to cry about halfway in.

“Are you crying again?”, John asks.

“No”, Howard lies quietly.

He finally opened all the buttons and pushes the fabric off his belly now, trying to see the wound.

“You should have really told me earlier”, John mutters.

“Sorry”, Howard mumbles.

“Can I use your shirt?”

“What?”

“As a bandage? You keep losing blood, I don’t know how long you can keep going like that.”

“I.. okay”, Howard says, figuring that he would rather walk around shirtless than bleed out.

Besides, his shirt is already pretty fucked up anyway, he’ll never get that blood out. 

“Can you help me get out of it?”, he asks.

John nods and reaches for the shirt, carefully pulling it off Howard’s shoulders.

“Can I rip it?”, he asks.

“Do what you have to do.”

John nods lightly and starts to rip it into long strips.

He lays most of them carefully into Howard’s lap before he reaches for a bigger one, a shoulder part and dunks it into the lake like a washcloth.

He comes back and kneels down next to Howard, his gaze locked on the wound on his belly.

“Can I..?”

“What?”, Howard mumbles before he notices that Johns hand is hovering over the wound, asking if it’s okay for him to touch.

Howard nods quickly.

John carefully reaches for his waist to hold him steady as he starts to wipe the blood away, using the provisional washcloth.

“I wish we had disinfectants”, John mumbles.

“And painkillers”, Howard adds, because the pain is still pushing tears in his eyes.

John nods lightly.

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

Howard shrugs lightly. “I don’t know.” 

“It was reckless and ..even stupid. You have lost so much blood by now, I don’t know if I can help you with this.”

“I’m sorry”, Howard mutters.

“I just.. I don’t understand why you didn’t say anything.”

“I was scared, okay?”

“One more reason to tell me.”

“I was-.. This day has been a lot, okay? And I thought maybe if I don’t say anything, it’ll be less real or.. I don’t know.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“I _know_ I fucked up. But we’re here now and you being mad at me won’t change our situation for the better, so please just.. don’t.”

John hesitates. Then he nods and sighs.

“I’m not mad at you”, he says, “I apologise if it came out that way. I’m worried and I suppose I’m scared. I don’t want you to die on me.” 

“Will I die?”, Howard asks, knowing that John probably doesn’t know the answer either. 

“I hope not”, he just answers.

He reaches for a piece of shirt now and folds it before he presses it on the wound.

Then he reaches for another and wraps it around Howard’s waist to keep the folded piece in place on the wound. He wraps a few more around him, tying them close.

It takes a while until Howard is all bandaged up.

He just sort of shut his eyes at some point and clenched his teeth, trying not to cry again. He catches himself having digged his fingers into Johns arm, looking for comfort, maybe.

He quickly let’s go, seeing the red marks his nails left there.

“Shit, sorry”, he mumbles.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay. ..sorry. Thank you.”

“I hope this is good enough.”

“It will be fine”, Howard says, hoping desperately that that’s true.

“Do you think you can walk?”

Howard nods, even though he’s pretty sure that’s a lie. He just wants to lay down. Breathing is exhausting.

“Over there is what looks like a cave”, John says, “Do you think you can make it there?”

Howard nods. “Yeah.”

“Okay.”

John gets up, reaches for Howard’s hands and helps him up.

Walking is painful and it feels like an eternity until they reach the cave John meant.

It’s a crevice, a little further up and they more or less have to climb inside.

They make it, with John going first and pulling Howard up.

It’s roomy.

Roomier that Howard expected it to be.

There’s room enough for both of them to sit or even lay down if they lay close enough.

Then there’s a narrow passage, leading further into the cave.

They silently agree to not go there, both of them just sitting down.

Howard sighs contently as soon as he let himself sink down, leaning against the cold hard wall.

“Shit”, he whispers, when he finally lets himself think about what the hell is happening.

“Are you in pain?”, John asks.

“Yeah.”

“Are you cold?”

“It’s fine.”

“Okay.”

John fumbles off his turtleneck, wringing it out.

“What are you doing?”, Howard asks.

“I’m hanging it up to dry. Not all of us wore a waterproof suit.”

Howard is almost taken aback at John being sassy. He was so professional until now.

“Sorry”, he fumbles out, watching as John peels off his drenched undershirt as well.

He just sort of slaps both on the crooked stone wall at the entrance to the cave.

“It really is warmer now that the sun came up”, he mumbles, more to himself than to Howard.

He looks up, eyeing the sky outside of the cave. “..or whatever it is that gives us light and warmth here.”

“Do you.. think we’re dead?”, Howard fumbles out, having been wanting to ask that for a while.

“..No.”

“Where are we?”

“I believe still in the Black and White.”

“But..”

“From what you told me, it sounds like we fell through a portal.”

“Do you know stuff about it?”

John nods lightly.

“I didn’t think you would end up here, I’m sorry.”

“I mean you’re here too. This sucks for both of us.”

John nods lightly.

“I suppose.”

“So do you wanna explain?”, Howard keeps asking, hoping that if he understands, maybe they can find a way out.

“There’s.. different levels, different.. realms in here. It’s not as simple as just one place, it’s many places all thrown together, an infinite amount of twisted versions of reality.”

“And the portals link them?”

“Yes. There are glitches, locations where the realms overlap.”

“Okay. And what do we do? What do we-.. shit we’re going to die, right?”

“You’ll have to remain calm if we want to survive this.”

“I mean, _can_ we?”

“Yes. The chances are very slim but yes.”

“How do you know all this?”

“From Wilburs first mission here. He studied this place before he.. decided to stay.”

“Do you think Wiggly controls him?”

“Part of me hopes so, but I don’t think. The last time I saw him before earlier today, he was different. The Wilbur I knew had died already.”

“Like.. _died_?”

John shrugs lightly. “Maybe. I wouldn’t know.”

“Shit.”

“Seeing him feels strange. But that man earlier was not the man I knew, I can tell you that much.”

“Were you guys, uh.. close?”, Howard clumsily fumbles out.

John looks up. He watches Howard, long enough for it to get kind of uncomfortable.

“Yes”, he then says, not seeming to want to elaborate.

“Oh.”

“You should try to sleep for a while.”

“Hey, I’m sorry. That must have been really tough.”

“I’m alright.”

“Are you sure?”

John nods lightly.

“We just need to get out of here. You should rest now.”

“You’re not tired?”

“Just rest. I will keep watch.”

“Okay, if you’re sure.”

“I am.”

"Okay. Good night."

"Night."


	5. Another Portal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John has learned nothing from horror movies and goes into the dark cave

Howard keeps dreaming of a mouth while he sleeps. A smile with lips and teeth. So many teeth, in fact. Nothing happens, the mouth is just there with him for the whole dream. 

He’s relieved when he wakes up again. The sky outside is still bright and blue and blinding, like nothing changed.

John is still sitting where he sat when Howard drifted off. His eyes are closed and he’s breathing rather slowly, so he must be sleeping, Howard figures.

Howard pushes himself up.

Pain shoots in his neck and in the wound in his belly which he almost forgot about for a moment. A sound escapes his lips, a quiet mix between a groan and a whimper.

John opens his eyes immediately, looking alarmed.

“Are you alright?”, he asks.

Howard nods. “Yes, fine. How long was I gone?”

John looks at his watch. “About five hours.”

“Does time work here? Does that watch work?” Howard asks, eyeing it suspiciously.

John sighs quietly and it almost sounds like relief, like gratifaction.

“Time is a precious threat in the fabric of the universe. It always works”, he says.

“Okay. ..That’s great! How o’clock is it?”

“Almost three am.”

“But-“

Howard gestures at the daylight outside, looking for an answer.

John nods. “Time works the same, but that does not mean that nature does as well. If I’m being frank, I’m not sure if this even is natural light. I don’t know if any of this is real.”

“Oh.”

“By the way, we should probably leave. It’s not safe to stay at one place for too long here, we need to keep moving.”

“Okay.”

“Can you move?”

“I think yeah.”

“That’s good.”

John gets up and plucks his tanktop off the wall, slipping into it. He then reaches for his turtleneck, now dry as well, and throws it at Howard.

“Wha-.. For me?“, Howard fumbles out, having barely managed to catch it.

“You will need something to keep you warm.”

“So do you.“

“Mr-.. Howard. You need this far more than I do, so please. Take it.“

Howard nods lightly.

“Okay”, he mutters.

He reaches for the turtleneck in his lap and pulls it over his head, painstakingly slowly.

It smells nice like John and salty like water.

John got up and is in the process of examining the narrow passage in the cave.

“I don’t think we should go in there”, Howard says because the passage scares him more than anything outside of the cave.

“Why?”, John asks without looking up as he carefully pushes himself inside the passage, disappearing in the darkness.

“Uh because..”, Howard starts, blushing a little because the last thing he wants John to perceive him as is a coward. “This is just exactly what you always learn in horror movies right? Don’t go into the dark spots of the murder house, you will die there.”

John stays quiet so Howard quickly adds: “Not that I’m personally scared of the dark, I just think.. why should we go somewhere where we can barely see when we also have the option to just go outside where light is?”

He waits for John to answer until he realises that John was weirdly quiet since he stepped through the passage and even if he’s not the most talkative person, this is very unlikely for him.

“John?”, Howard whispers, getting scared again. “This is not funny, please come back.”

He pushes himself up and walks closer to the passage.

“Okay I am scared”, he quietly admits, “I haven’t been not scared since I met you and you dragged me here, to be honest. There you have it.”

He leans into the passage and it’s just pitch black in there.

None of the light outside of the cave seems to reach in there.

“Please come back”, he whispers because the last thing he wants to do is go in there as well. “Please come back, please come back, please come back.”

John does, in fact, not come back.

“Okay”, Howard says, only talking to himself at this point. “Okay, I will follow you. Because being here without you scares me more than the darkness.”

He pushes his body through the passage and suddenly there’s that feeling in his chest again. He knows that feeling, it’s like he’s being pulled somewhere without moving voluntarily.

It feels like when they got swallowed by the angler fish, the tiny moment between them passing through that things teeth and them falling through the tree branches.

And suddenly Howard understands what’s happening.

It’s a portal.

Suddenly he is somewhere again and he falls against someone. It’s still dark but not dark enough for him to be incapable of seeing. It’s night-dark. Howard grabs the first thing his hand reaches, which - in this case - is John. In his fear of losing balance, Howard holds onto John and causes both of them to tumble to the ground.

And so he finds himself on top of John who’s laying on his back and it takes a moment for Howard to orientate himself so for a few seconds, he just stares at John in shock.

They’re way too close and that gets rather uncomfortable the longer it lasts.

“It was a portal”, Howard says, to make the uncomfortable silence come to an end.

John nods lightly.

“I apologise for leaving you behind.”

“It’s okay, I found you.”

“I tried to get back but-..”

“Hate to say this but I was right about not going in there.”

John opens his mouth to answer, then he closes it again and smiles instead. “You were.”

Howard carefully pushes himself up and helps John up as well.

Then he turns to get some sort of orientation as to where they are and also because he feels weirdly watched and wants to make sure no one is there.

“There’s nothing here”, John notes from behind him.

And he’s right, it all looks like some sort of desert.

Just plain sandy land all around them. There’s nothing there and no one watching them, Howard is probably just paranoid.

In the distance, Howard believes to see the skyline of a city and when he turns to John to tell him, he notices that John is staring in the direction of the city as well.

“Do you see that too?”, Howard asks, since a part of him is scared that it’s just a mirage.

“If you see a city, then yes, so do I. But it wasn’t there before you came.”

“Are you sure?”

“Very sure.”

“Maybe we should just go there.”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe there’s someone who can help.”

“I don’t think there are people here, Mr. President.”

Howard just stares at John until he quietly corrects himself by muttering “Howard.”

“I just think it’s better to go there than to go in the opposite direction”, Howard says, “Like at least there’s _something_.”

John nods. “I agree.”

“You-..Yes?”

John nods. “I don’t know if it’s safe but I think we should go there.”

“Okay.”

John nods lightly towards the city and Howard starts walking with John following him.

* * *

They make it to the city eventually.

It looks abandoned.

It’s dead quiet there, no traffic noises, no people talking or shouting or hurrying through the streets.

There are cars but they look old and like they haven’t been driven in centuries.

Weed grows over some of them and over the doors and windows of the skyscrapers made of glass, just climbing up the walls and decorating them in green or a sunbaked brown.

They walk through the streets until they reach what looks like the suburbs. They left the skyscrapers behind and now there are idyllic houses with big gardens and broken windows and fences.

It all looks like people used to be there once.

Or maybe it’s just another piece of scenery, one of Wiggly’s twisted games.

“What do we do?”, Howard asks after they walked in silence for a while.

“I don’t know”, John admits.

He wanders towards one of the houses, just pushing open the broken gate and then he’s in the garden and walking to the open entrance of the house.

Howard is too scared to follow but what’s even scarier is waiting there and losing John again so he quickly follows John into the house.

It’s desolated but at least not as dark as it is outside. John turned on a light in the corridor so those still seem to be functioning after all. 

Howard stops in the doorway to the kitchen as John walks over to the sink and turns it on.

It takes a few seconds but soon enough water splatters out and into the porcelain sink.

John pushes his hand under it before he pulls it back up to his nose and smells it.

“This might be drinkable”, he says, “but I can’t guarantee that.”

“Fuck it”, Howard mumbles, having noticed thirsty he is.

He didn’t have any water in hours.

He just goes over to the cupboard to get a glass when John stops him.

“Let me try first.”

“Why?”

“You’re the president of the United States.”

“That doesn’t make my life more important than yours.”

“Yes it does”, John says, sounding very convinced by his own words.

“No? Besides, if one of us is going to make it out of here, it will be you”, Howard says, knowing he’s right.

They’ve been there for not even a day and Howard already managed to fall on a sharp rock and nearly get eaten alive.

Meanwhile everything that happened to John was that he got attacked by something invisible (which he managed to fight off by himself).

“I will not argue with you about this”, John just says and grabs a glass, filling it up with water as Howard watches in shock.

He drinks some of it, only a few sips.

It’s dead quiet for a few seconds.

“This is fine, I think”, he then says.

“Sure?”

“You can wait a few hours if you want.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Maybe it kills slowly.”

Howard hesitates. Then he decides to drink some water anyway because if John dies from this, Howard isn’t going to survive in that place anyway.

He’d rather die because of poisoned water than while being eaten alive.

He gets a glass and he fills it with water and he drinks it and it’s insanely refreshing.

He didn’t even notice how thirsty he is.

John chugged down his water too and leaves the kitchen now, to look at the rest of the house.

Howard lets him, having decided that he should stop following John like a dog just because he’s scared.

He steps into what looks like a living room as John makes his way upstairs.

Howard finds a magazine on the couch and picks it up to flip through it.

It looks normal, on the first glance. It’s like any fashion magazine, except that all of the depicted people are crying. It’s not a sobbing kind of crying, nothing you notice immediately. It’s just when Howard flips onto a page with a close up of some faces, that he notices that all of them have glassy eyes and tears running down their cheeks. As he skips further, he realises that every single model on every single page seems utterly miserable and scared.

He quickly closes the magazine and drops it back on the couch.

He knows he said he wouldn’t follow John but now he’s feeling so unsettled that he just needs to make sure John is still there.

He can hear him walking around upstairs but who knows, Howard isn’t sure if he can trust his senses anymore.

He makes his way upstairs and finds John standing at a desk and in front of a computer.

“Does it work?”, he asks.

“I don’t know yet. I just.. if we managed to get in contact with Xander, he might be able to navigate us out of here.” 

“Do you think you can do that?”

“I can try. Do you mind if we stay here for a while?”

Howard shrugs. That place doesn’t feel right but no place really did since they entered the Black and White. So it doesn‘t matter if they stay or leave, nowhere is safe and if they stay, John might be able to reach Xander somehow.

“No, sure”, Howard therefore says, “Let‘s stay.”


	6. Lots Of Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Like a lot. Just. So many eyes.

They do stay.

They find some clothes in the closet in the bedroom and they take a shower before putting them on. John finds an apple tree behind the house and they eat some apples, both of them too exhausted and too hungry to care about whether or not they should eat them. They survived the tap water too, after all.

The first night is especially weird. There’s only one bed but that’s not the problem. They agreed on not sleeping at the same time anyway so there‘s no way for it to end in accidental cuddles.

Howard isn’t sure if accidental cuddles are a thing in real life anyway, it probably just happens on tv.

There‘s no way people can’t just stay on their side, seriously.

He has never been in a situation where he had to share a bed with someone who he wasn‘t in a relationship with, so he wouldn’t know but still. It can’t be that hard.

Howard managed to talk John into sleeping first. It took a few minutes of discussion but eventually John gave in, tired as he was. He could barely keep his eyes open and Howard already got to sleep in the cave earlier. It’s only fair that John gets to sleep first.

Howard doesn‘t stay in the bedroom with John because he‘d feel weird doing that, so he goes back downstairs instead and starts to look around the house more.

It all seems rather normal.

Abandoned but normal.

It doesn’t really differ from any abandoned house in the real world. There’s a kitchen, two smaller bathrooms, a living room and an empty room that looks like it was a bedroom once but all of the furniture is gone now.

There’s even a tiny library.

Howard stops in there for a while and inspects the books because for a short moment of hope, he thinks that maybe there’s something in there that will help.

He doesn’t know any of the books he picks up though and they give him a weird gut feeling. They make him feel like he's not supposed to be there, in the library, like he's not supposed to be touching any of the books. 

Some of the books – or not just some, it’s a lot of them – have a single eye on their spines. All of the eyes have different colours but most of them are some shade of purple.  
Howard only notices them rather late and can’t help but wonder if those eyes where there the whole time. He would have surely noticed sooner, if they were. But also eyes don’t just appear on book spines all of the sudden, usually.

Ignoring the lump of fear sitting in his throat, Howard picks up one of the books to inspect the eye on its spine closer.

It’s not a real eye, Howard figures, of course it’s not, it can’t be. It looks weirdly real though. It must be made of glass and it looks polished, not as dusty as the rest of the book.

It emerges out of the material and is framed with delicate leather eyelids and the longer Howard looks at it, the more watched and uncomfortable he feels. His heart picks up in pace and he swallows, having found himself unable to move or act in any way, caught in an uncomfortable eye contact, he can’t seem to break out of.

Then the eye blinks.

Howard flinches at the sudden movement and drops the book. He screams, he’s not embarrassed to admit that, everybody would have screamed.

He hurries out of the library as fast as he possibly can and closes the door, leaning against it so the book can’t follow. If it can blink, it might be able to move too, right?

Struck by panic and fear, Howard still feels watched. When he looks up and around the corridor, he realises why. It's only then, that he finally notices all the eyes.

Every picture, every frame that’s hung up there contains the image of an eye. There are eyes like peepholes on the doors and eyes worked into the pattern of the carpet.

They weren’t they before, they can’t be. Howard would have noticed them, he would have noticed.

All at once, they blink and Howard runs, his movement followed by hundreds of gazes. He runs all the way to the bedroom and to John and he closes the door behind himself as soon as he made it inside.

John is still asleep.

Even in the bathroom there are paintings and pictures of eyes on the wall.

Howard takes a breath and decides to take them off, as quiet as possible as to not wake John.

He puts them outside in the corridor and closes the door. Then he sits down in the armchair in the corner of the room and he listens to John breath, in order to calm down.

As soon as the adrenaline rush leaves him again, the pain comes back, stitching into his side worse than before, to the point where it nearly paralyses him. He starts to cry but doesn’t dare to move since the fear is still stronger than the pain.

He sits there, unmoving, until the light outside in the sky turns on at once, just like someone flipped a switch again and John wakes up.

He stirs and rolls over. He cracks an eye open to find Howard clued to the arm chair, his fingers still dug into the armrests in fear.

John frowns and sits up.

“Are you alright?”

“I didn’t want to wake you.”

“What happened?”

“I, uh.. I’m not sure. There were so many eyes.”

John sits up and swings his legs over the edge of the bed, still visibly confused and still in the process of waking up. 

“Do you ever feel watched? Since we got here?”, Howard asks.

“Yes”, John answers, plain and simple.

“Oh.”

“Where did you see eyes?”

Howard opens his mouth to answer but ends up saying nothing. John gets up and comes over to Howard who’s still sitting there, traumatised and not daring to move.

“Howard”, John says, softly. He holds out his hand and Howard manages to reach for it.

He gets up even though his legs still feel a little wobbly, while clinging to John more than he’d like to admit. John reaches for his face and Howard flinches, even though he didn’t mean to.

John quickly pulls back his hand.

“I apologise.”

“No, sorry. It’s fine.”

John hesitates.

“What were you going to..?”, Howard starts. 

“I was trying to consult you. I’m sorry, I’m not very good at this.”

“Oh.”

John fully lets his hand sink now but Howard catches it mid air.

And there they are then, holding each other’s hands.

Howard isn’t sure if he’s just feeling the sudden spark of affection because they’re trapped in what feels like hell and John is the only person around, who's giving him a feeling of safety or if he’s genuinely catching feelings but either way, he decides that it’s incredibly inappropriate and shouldn’t happen.

He lets go of Johns hands.

“You could have woken me up”, John notes.

Howard waves him off. “It’s fine.”

“Do you want to sleep now?”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“Okay.”

“Sorry.”

“What for?”

“Spending the night in here with you. That was weird, I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“It’s alright. You could have laid down with me.”

“Oh? I-.. Oh. Okay.”

“Next time.”

Howard blushes, not sure what exactly is wrong with him.

John goes for the door and suddenly Howards panic is back.

“Wait!”, he warns him, too late. John already opened the door and turns back to Howard now, confused.

“What is it?”

“There-.. the eyes.”

“What eyes?”

John looks into the corridor, looking for eyes but apparently not finding any because shortly afterwards, he turns back to Howard again.

“I can’t see any. Why did you put those framed pictures outside?”

Howard slowly makes his way over to John and pushes past him, to peek into the corridor as well.

It looks almost like he left it the night before, pictures and paintings hastily placed on the floor. Except that none of them contain eyes now. One of them shows a sunset, another one a forest, all of them show nature somehow, nothing human and especially no eyes.

Howard frowns.

He goes downstairs, hurrying into the library now, just to make sure that he didn’t lose his mind, though apparently he did. All of the eyes on the book spines are gone as well.

John appears in the doorway behind him, just as Howard frantically starts to pick up books, flipping through them and trying to find just a glimpse of what he saw the night before.

“Are you alright?”, John asks.

“There were eyes. Everywhere. On the books and-.. they were everywhere, you have to believe me-“

“I believe you.”

Howard looks up.

“What?”

“I believe you”, John repeats calmly.

“Oh. ..thank you.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Howard only manages to shake his head.

John nods, slowly and understanding. “I’ll get right on contacting Xander then. Hopefully we can leave this place as soon as possible.”

Howard nods in agreement.

“Do you want a coffee?”, he fumbles out, still confused because of the disappearance of the eyes but relieved that John believes him.

“We have coffee?”

“I found some beans last night”, Howard explains, “It’s worth a try.”

“A coffee would be nice.”

“Okay, I’ll get right on that.”

“Thank you, Howard.”

“Thank you. For..”

“Of course.”

“Thanks”, Howard mutters again, quietly. Then he points towards the kitchen and leaves to make coffee.


	7. And There Was Only One Bed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John patches up Howard again but better this time. Maybe they flirt a little. Maybe they share a bed idk idk

John leaves later that day, to inspect the other houses around them.

Howard tries to talk him out of it, he really does but John is even more stubborn than he thought. Eventually he gives up and asks to join John but the pain in his wound got worse that day to the point where he can barely stand, so they let go of that idea rather quickly too.

“I just want to see if there’s something that will help you”, John explains, calmly but with impatience swinging in his voice.

“Okay”, Howard quietly gives in, scared that John will be mad at him if he keeps trying to make him stay. 

“Okay”, John says too.

“You’ll come back?”, Howard asks.

“Of course.”

“And you’ll be careful?”

“I will be.”

“Don’t fall through a portal.”

“I won’t.”

“See you soon?”

John nods. He checks to make sure he has his gun, then he grabs a bag.

“You’ll be careful as well?”, he asks.

“What can I do instead of laying here?”

“That’s what I meant. Just stay, I don’t want your wound to get worse.”

“Okay”, Howard quietly agrees.

“I’ll be back in half an hour.”

John turns to leave.

Howard nods even though John can’t see that.

The door falls shut and there Howard is, in his place on the couch, where John banned him when he saw Howard limping through the house with fresh blood soaking through the transient bandage and his new, stolen T-Shirt.

Howard closes his eyes after a while because it keeps him from checking all the spots where he saw eyes the night before, over and over.

He dozes off there, despite being scared for John and scared for himself and scared about everything and anything.

He hasn’t slept in a while, so he can’t really help it.

* * *

He has a nightmare.

That’s all he remembers when he wakes up, gasping for air and sweat having soaked through his clothes.

Eyes. He remembers eyes, in his nightmare. He was being watched and he knew that.

Howard slowly sits up. “John?”, he mumbles.

Then he remembers that John left.

His eyes fall on the clock on the wall and he realises that it has been over two hours since John left.

“John?”, he asks again, louder. He panics now, because he _knew_ this would happen, he knew he would lose John if he lets him leave, all alone and without protection.

“John?”, he shouts in one last attempt, with his last bit of hope.

There are footsteps, rumbling down the stairs and shortly afterwards, John comes running into the living room.

“Are you alright?”, he asks.

Howard nearly starts to cry, he’s so relieved.

“You came back”, he breaths.

“Of course I did. You were asleep, I didn’t want to wake you, I apologise if my absence worried you.”

“It’s okay, I just got scared that you had..”

“I’m here.”

“I see.”

Johns eyes drop on Howard’s belly.

“Now that you’re awake, do you mind if I redo that?”

“You found something?”

“Yes, come on.”

John helps Howard get up and steadies him on his way into the kitchen.

He pulls a chair near the sink and gestures for Howard to sit down while he gets the bag he took earlier. It’s filled with something now, bandages and medicine, Howard sees, as soon as John empties it all on the counter next to where Howard is sitting.

“Oh wow”, Howard whispers.

“Do you mind taking off your T-Shirt?”

“No, sure.” Howard blushes, even though he doesn’t have any reason to do so.

He fumbles his T-Shirt off as well as the bloody bandage while John gets a clean cloth and drenches it with disinfectants and water.

“This is going to hurt”, he notes.

“Yeah, that’s fine”, Howard claims.

“Okay.”

John carefully dips away the blood around the wound and Howard bites down on his lip in an attempt not to scream when it starts to burn.

“You’re alright?”, John ask quietly.

Howard nods (despite being close to tears) and John goes on.

“That wound does not look good”, John admits.

“Will I die?”, Howard asks. He asks it in a joking tone, meaning it as a joke, meaning it in a light-hearted way but both of them know that yes, he might. Maybe they both will.

“Hopefully not”, John says and gifts him a smile as he looks up.

His smile turns into a frown when he sees Howards pain-stricken face. “I’ll be done soon”, he promises, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologise.”

“Well you’re in pain and it’s my fault.”

“It’s not your fault, it’s that stupid rock. You’re helping me.”

“I suppose. I don’t like seeing you in pain.”

“..I don’t like being in pain”, Howard says, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

“The bad news is that I should probably stitch that and that will hurt.”

“It’s okay, do what you have to.”

“Sure?”

Howard nods.

John gets a needle and a threat that looks rather professional.

“Did you rob a hospital?”, Howard jokes quietly, to distract himself from how bad his wound is looking.

“Something like that”, John says, rather serious as he usually is. "Unfortunately I couldn't find any anesthetics."

“It's alright. ..Thank you.”

“I’m not going to let you die”, John notes. It sounds like a promise.

“I might.”

“Don’t say that.” John goes back to Howard’s wound, needle in hand. “I’ll start now, take a breath.”

Howard nods lightly and takes a breath. He tries to look anywhere but at what John is doing but he can still very much feel the pain.

“I’m sorry”, he mutters.

“What for?”

“Saying I might die.”

“It’s okay that you’re scared, I am too. But I will protect you with my life if I have to, you should know that”, John explains quietly.

“Like you like me?”, Howard blurts out. He’s a bit surprised because they barely know each other but he catches himself being surprised in a very positive way and that’s new.

John hesitates. He doesn’t stop stitching but he looks rather taken aback.

“I meant..”, he starts. He frowns lightly. Then a smile forms on his lips and Howard gets a feeling that he completely misinterpreted Johns words. “You’re the president of the United States. It is my duty to protect you”, John goes on to explain.

Howard swallows and quickly goes on to avoid Johns gaze. The embarrassment alone is enough to make him shut up at this point.

He can see John smile in the corner of his eye and silently prays that he’s not laughing at him.

“Sorry”, Howard fumbles out.

John shakes his head. “Mr. President-”, he starts.

“Howard”, Howard corrects him quietly.

“I’m flattered, I truly am.”

“But?”

“‘No but. I can assure you that if we were anywhere but in this situation, in this.. place, I would be more than just flattered and I surely wouldn’t say no to.. finding out where this can lead.”

“Oh?”

“But we’re here.”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe we will get out.”

“If we get out, you’d be interested in a date?”

“Of course.”

“Well.” Howard can’t help but smile. They might be trapped in a world filled with nightmares but he’s only human and he can’t deny that he has been attracted to John from the moment he walked into the Oval Office uninvited.

John cuts off the rest of the threat now and Howard takes a relieved breath because it did hurt a lot.

John looks up and freezes. “You‘re crying, did I do something wrong? Did I say-“

“Just the pain. I’m fine, sorry”, Howard says. He didn't even realise that tears started emerging from his eyes, he was so focused on talking without his voice shaking.

“Oh.”

John reaches up to wipe the tears off Howard’s face, before he casually goes on doing what he stopped doing for that gentle gesture, while Howard just sits there, slightly overwhelmed.

John carefully puts a piece of sterile bandage cloth on Howards wound.

“Can you hold that?”

Howard nods and does as John said.

John unwraps a bandage and silently goes on to mantle Howards waist with it.

“This should do for a while”, he notes.

“Thank you.”

“Of course.”

John helps Howard to get up. “Make sure to stay hydrated, you have lost a lot of blood”, he says.

Howard nods lightly. “Okay.”

“If you don’t mind, I will try and reach Xander again. You can sleep for a while, if you want to.”

“Okay, sure. Thank you.”

* * *

Howard does sleep for a while.

It’s dark outside, when he wakes up. He gets up and walks back into the corridor, to find John still sitting at that desk.

The computer screen is no longer fully black and instead shows a purple, blinking eye. It blinks about every five seconds and it blinks slowly, like it wants to make sure everybody sees.

“Hey”, Howard says, so John knows he’s there.

John turns to him for a moment. He looks awfully tired. “Oh, you’re awake.”

“Yeah. ..Can I help you?”, Howard asks, feeling out of place and like he should do something that isn’t walking around with no purpose. They’re in this together after all.

“I don’t know. I finally managed to turn this thing on but it has just been this for two hours. I can’t seem to get past this.. screensaver. Or whatever this is.”

John sighs and reaches up to massage his temples.

“Are you alright?”, Howard asks.

“Just tired, I suppose. I have been staring at this screen for hours.”

“You should go to sleep now”, Howard suggests, already preparing for John to object. To his surprise, John doesn’t. He just nods.

“I think you’re right.”

He pushes himself up from his chair.

Howard holds open the door to the bedroom for him and steps aside, considering he’s standing right in it.

“Thank you”, John says, as he walks past Howard into the bedroom.

“Okay, I’ll leave you alone then”, Howard mumbles, pointing into the corridor. He doesn’t really want to be alone in the house again but he also doesn’t want to be selfish. He doesn’t want to ask if he can stay in the bedroom with John, that would just be weird.

“You can stay”, John says, in the process of slipping out of his shoes.

“What?”, Howard fumbles out.

“If you want to. I don’t mind.”

“Oh.”

John looks up. “You got scared the last time, so I figured..”

Howard blushes. “I mean I didn’t get _scared_ , I just.. got a little scared, I- I mean-“

Howard stops talking when John tilts his head and smiles. “Just come here”, he says, as he sits down in bed and lifts up the blanket to slip underneath. 

“Okay”, Howard gives in, because after all, the last thing he wants to be is alone. And John genuinely doesn’t seem to mind.

Howard goes for the bed and John lifts up the blanket for him, so he slips inside. He doesn’t fully lay down and instead sits up against the headrest, pushing the spare pillows behind himself for comfort. He doesn’t want to fall asleep again after all, he is supposed to make sure nothing happens or at least wake John up if anything does happen.

“Night”, John mumbles, already closing his eyes and turning away from Howard.

“Good night”, Howard whispers.

John falls asleep shortly afterwards.

He starts to snore quietly, though not in a particularly annoying way. In fact, it’s almost soothing.

They laid there for about an hour when John rolls over onto his belly and into the middle of the bed. His arm lands on Howards chest in the process and Howard catches himself holding his breath for a moment.

It’s not exactly a hug, his hand is just resting there, right above Howards heart.

Howard eyes John, to check if he’s awake but he’s not, of course he’s not. Howard figures that it doesn’t really matter, because he doesn’t mind and John didn’t seem to have a problem with them sharing a bed either.

The longer they lay there, the harder it gets for him to stay awake though, because the calming sound of Johns breath and the feeling of the warm air hitting his neck is enough to make Howard sleepy again. Combined with the gentle pressure of Johns hand on his chest, Howard ends up closing his eyes after a while.

* * *

Howard wakes up when John stirs in bed next to him.

It takes him a moment to figure out that him waking up means he must have falls asleep at some point. And it takes him several more moments to realise how closely he’s cuddled up against John.

He quickly pulls away and sits up.

John opens one of his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Sorry”, Howard mutters.

John frowns, visibly confused.

“I, uh..”, Howard starts, confused that John doesn’t seem to care that he was just clinging to him like his life depends on it. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter, I think”, John says, still half asleep. “If anything happens, one of us will surely wake up.”

“Okay.”

“And I don’t mind you in my personal space, if that’s what worried you.”

“I..” Howard doesn’t know how to respond to that. It was nice, being close to John, but he also barely knows him.

“Unless you do mind, of course”, John adds, “then I will move.”

He pushes himself further to the side of the bed.

“It’s okay”, Howard quickly stops him. “I don’t mind if you don’t.”

John comes to a stop and lets himself sink back into the pillow, slowly.

“Alright.”

“Okay”, Howard whispers, more to himself than to John, as he lays down again, close to John but not daring to go for a hug.

Just laying close like that is already relaxing. His fear of being alone really did deteriorate since they got trapped in the Black and White, he supposes.

He’s not really sure how it happened or who initiated it but about ten minutes later, they are holding each other again. For all he knows, it might even be him who rolled over just a little further and wrapped his arm around Johns torso.

John smells really nice, which is actually pretty impressive, considering where they are and that while they do have a shower and clean water, they don’t have soap or anything like that.

On top of him smelling nice, he’s also rather decent at holding people. Howard really doesn’t mean to be that kind of guy but John does make him forget his name for a second there, when he pulls him closer and his fingers gently rub over Howards shoulder.

Howard falls back asleep five minutes into John holding him like that.


End file.
